Dave Liebman, Adarm Rudolph, Tatsuya Nakatani

The word magic comes up time and again when speaking of The Unknowable. Both Dave Liebman and Adam Rudolph use the term when describing their “beautiful alchemy” that also included Tatsuya Nakatani, all three acclaimed artists working as one for this project. Nakatani may not have been using the word “magic” when he refers to this trio’s unique chemistry; but when he speaks of “living life with sound spirit world,” I infer that he’s pointing to the same “voodoo of spontaneous high level musical communication” Liebman so aptly describes.

That “beautiful alchemy” Rudolph talks of could only have come about in light of previous separate and shared musical experiences between all three. Essentially drummers, Rudolph and Nakatani, and Liebman the all-around reed player, have traveled their respective “spaceways” with just a few overlaps. But, to back it up even further, as Rudolph states,

“In one way, your entire life as a human being and as an artist is the prep[aration]. That is, you have to come to a creative situation like this with open ears, an open heart, and free-flowing imagination. The preparation is also years and years of practice, composing and performance so that we can be free to play anything we can imagine to play.”

The genesis of this threesome coming together seemed to be a quite natural one. “I invited Dave to play duo with me at the Stone [on New York’s Lower East Side] during my residency there in May, 2016,” says Rudolph. “He agreed, and it was magic. He has always dug drummers and he knows how to listen and dialogue with the drums.” Liebman concurs, stating separately, “I love drummers!” As for Nakatani, Rudolph recalls, “Tatsuya and I had played several trio concerts together with Kaoru Watanabe [who plays in Rudolph’s Go: Organic Orchestra] several years ago. We had a wonderful connection and also really complemented each other by our unique approaches. He is a fantastic musician; there is no one who sounds quite like him. As for Dave with Tatsuya,” he continues, “they performed together in the summer of 2016, and Dave loved playing with him. So when we talked about recording, Dave had the idea - which I loved - for the three of us to record together.”

“A totally improvised program,” as Liebman refers to it, might have one wondering how it all came together, and how much conversation preceded each piece. “It was intuition,” says Rudolph. “Each of us had ideas about how to approach every composition. That is, we all understood how to improvise form, which not all musicians can do, even those who improvise inside of form. I call what we did spontaneous composition,” a term Rudolph prefers rather than calling it “improvisation.” According to Liebman, “This was a completely spontaneous happening, with instruments chosen on the spot, with, of course, a nod to variety, with the usual suspects that make music meaningful.” Similarly, there was the question of what to call each piece; all of the music, while consistently divergent from track to track, still shared magically abstract qualities. “I came up with the titles as I listened to the mixes,” Rudolph remembers. “Everyone liked what I came up with, as the titles were not too literal. In a way, this music doesn’t even need titles. It exists on its own terms. What’s thrilling for me is that the music sounds prototypical [italics], like itself.”

“Those are both brilliant examples of the complexities of human beings. Each of these tunes is trance-like and transformative and swiftly transports the listener. The harmonic approaches of each of these songs is deeply fundamental and helps propel the message of the song perfectly."

The Unknowable, made up of 13 completely improvised, group-composed pieces and available in both CD and double-LP configurations, provides distinct expressions from track to track, most of the selections ranging from between three and four minutes, the longest, the heliocentric, serene “Cosmogram,” clocking in at just under five. How the three of them landed in Orange Music Sound Studio in New Jersey for a day recording in December 2016 can only be (hopefully) understood by brief backward glances of each artist that preceded their “fated” music meeting. In the end, though, we must be content with that “unknowable” element that courses through life and is certainly at the heart of this music.